Counterpart
by Xcite
Summary: 'What a freak'... The words echoed in his mind...'freak'... Maybe he really was a freak. Then what would be the reason for not choosing him? Maybe that was why no one ever chose this little Pikachu.
1. Chapter 1

**Whew! Finally it's written. I had the idea for this story a long time ago, but here it is at last.**

**I do not own Pokemon, that's all. **

**Please review and tell me what you think of it.**

**Enjoy.**

* * *

The mild spring breeze blew over the forest-green field and swiveled its soft grass. The stars shone quite brightly under the sky's black canvas and the sweet aroma of flowers opening up in such weather had filled the plain. Only clicks and sounds of Pokemon of the night were there to play in nature, and predators, herbivores and carnivores all were resting in their dens, nests or holes.

But the relaxing silence was broken by small footsteps, those which didn't belong to a human. It was pierced by an intruder, someone who didn't exactly know himself a part of the nature or anything around it, despite his own origins. The wind's cool whistling was lost among his desperate pants, thirsty for freedom. His tired body was preventing him from anymore activity, but his keen mind kept a small passageway of hope open for him.

The passion for freedom was what kept him struggling.

A yellow Pikachu's hurried footsteps broke the silence and brought an anomaly in nature's routine way of life.

He ran with all his might. His lungs were slowly starting to burn, and his every muscle hurt from trying so hard to grip onto the slightest strand of hope he had.

The grass crunched under his feet as he ran over them. One step, two steps...He had lost count of how far he had run long ago, yet he was happy. This hope he was clinging to, was becoming stronger and stronger the more he ran and fled, as the sounds of a human's footsteps faded over time. No more people to see, no more Pokemon seen to be caged...It was all he wanted.

Freedom. He was thirsty for it. He craved it with his soul, like it was an elixir granting a new life to the one who would ever drink it. It pumped life in his veins. It was what encouraged him to struggle, to make himself believe each attempt of fleeing wouldn't be just another fruitless endeavor.

It was what kept him alive.

His eyes were burning alongside his lungs this time as the wind savagely whipped itself in his eyes and on his body. Yet, he was not giving up so soon. He had come a long way, and he wasn't going to let his chance of freedom slip away, no matter how small it was. He could imagine the sweetness of never going back to the shelter, never waiting forever. Never waiting for someone to pick him...

Maybe it was for his small size that no one ever chose him. Or, maybe it was the stripes on his back? What if those were things humans only cared for? It could even be the way he liked to mess his fur with his paws and let a tuft stick out from his forehead. Whatever it was, it would never be him.

The day before he saw a girl come by. Soft, elegant and kind and neat, she was someone each Pokemon could ever wish for. What if...What if she chose Pikachu?

Again, another show had to be put on. He scratched his fur clean, made his dangling tuft of hair stick out boldly from the side of his forehead and sat patiently by the cage. His hopeful eyes were sewn onto the beautiful teenager: someone who might give him an actual place to live in, someone who would be worth fighting for and worth protecting against mean people.

Maybe she would choose him.

The girl's soft footsteps drew her closer to Pikachu's cage. She was a careful observer; she kept all caged Pokemon under notice and maybe she was evaluating them at the same time. Pikachu's smile grew bigger by the minute as she closed in, so close he could even hear her soft hair brush together in such a sweet way Pikachu would die for.

She would make the perfect owner.

The girl kneeled before Pikachu's cage out of the blue. He was a bit startled, but nonetheless happy. Finally, someone was contemplating over choosing him...For long, he had been waiting...

"Aw," The girl smiled warmly and brought her hands together, "This one's so cute!"

He couldn't believe it..._cute_...she had called him cute...

_He_ was going to be picked...

"Dad, Dad! I want this one!" The girl was pointing her index finger at him. He couldn't believe it! After such long time... he was picked! He was chosen over all the other caged, homeless Pokemon!

He would have a friend to live with.

With amazement, he started jumping around in the enclosed cage in a pattern, showing his happiness the best he could with sparks of electricity shooting out of his cheeks.

A tall man came along and kneeled beside the girl who was still watching him. But...But in his hands...

The girl gasped in surprise and looked at the Cinccino his father was holding. "Dad! This is so adorable! I want it!"

_I want it..._

Pikachu felt like he was being crushed under a ton of broken dreams and hopes. He couldn't believe it... She forgot him in a second...

She had chosen Cinccino instead of Pikachu and forgotten him in seconds.

He didn't care anymore. Instead his eyes teared up as he scooted to the rear of his cage and curled up in a ball. Again, some other Pokemon was picked instead of him, right before the girl would pick him up...

His tears dampened his soft yellow fur.

The other day he tried to act like Cinccino. He knew they had glossy fur, so maybe that was why the girl chose her over him. He had dumped himself in his water bowl and had spent hours licking the fur to give it a gloss. Surely it would be odd of a Pikachu to do so, but he wanted to be the best... or at least among them.

Finally a boy had come to the Pokemon shelter to choose his Pokemon. He bent down and looked at Pikachu, apparently taking notice of his now glossed and shiny fur.

"Hey Nate!" He called for his friend who was at a distant, "Come see this one!"

"What a freak!"

"Yeah, who would ever choose this Pikachu?"

The two had left Pikachu's cage and left him in a bitter amazement. All this effort...

_What a freak..._

All the effort was for nothing... He was a freak... an unwanted creature in the Pokemon shelter...

Maybe that was why they never chose him.

That had given him determination to get out of that Pokemon shelter hell. He'd rather die alone in the wild than to rot in that cage, hoping fruitlessly for someone to choose him. Because he wasn't the best.

That must have been why he was never chosen.

The little Pikachu resurfaced back to reality. He finally had fled from that shelter...Why had he even stayed there for so long? Why was he stupid enough to trust the humans? After all, they only wanted the best...

The Pikachu was so drowned in his thoughts that he failed to realize a stone was blocking his way, and hit the grassy terrain with a loud thud. He tried to get up, but a sickening pain grabbed him in his paw. He couldn't stand in that condition.

"Finally! There you are!"

The spoken words left a pit in Pikachu's stomach. 'No, no, no! Not you!' The words swirled in his mind and tackled his consciousness.

The shelter girl had picked up on his pace, and now she was there to take him back to rot in that cage.

"Pulse! Are you okay?!" The girl asked, dressed in her formal shelter attire as always, "Are you hurt?"

"My name is NOT Pulse!" The Pikachu snarled at her even though he knew she would only hear it as a bunch of 'Pika's and 'Chu's, yet he didn't care. He tried getting up from that position, but the pain in his paw was almost killing him.

"Whew, you put up a fight this time...I almost lost track of you!" The girl frowned at him, but took notice of his condition, "You need a collar," The girl kneeled beside Pikachu and examined his paw.

"No! NO! Not a collar!" The Pikachu struggled to run away from the girl but was held tight before he could react correctly.

"This is for your own good!" The girl dictated her words to him as she forcibly kept Pikachu under her grip and attached a collar to his neck, "This will control your electricity levels. Just don't go zapping shelter people again to get out!"

"No! Not a collar!" Pikachu knew what it would do... It meant no more moves. Without performing a Thunderbolt, a Pikachu was weak, but he still had a trick left in the bag.

"Let's go. Maybe you get lucky one- Ow!"

Pikachu bit the girl's hand and buried his fangs deep into it, only to guarantee his one way ticket out of there. He jumped out of the girl's grip and once more started running, even though his paw hurt. Wherever he was going, he wasn't going back to the shelter. Never, after what he had heard.

_What a freak_... The words echoed in his mind..._freak_... Maybe he really was a freak... Then what would be the reason for not choosing him?

_Freak_...

The Pikachu ran, with a broken heart and teary eyes. One thing he knew, was that he was never, ever again going back to the shelter.

So he ran, as long as his fatigued body would let him, as long as his burning lungs deprived of oxygen would allow him to. He ran to where his feet allowed him.

And there, a lonely Pikachu crossed the forest-green plain under the stars, and ran into night's grip as he vanished in the darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Yay! Second chapter's here!**

**Sorry for the wait. I had finals when I posted this, but even when summer arrived I hit a writer's block since writing plot's tricky for me. Instead, I took a three day trip to somewhere deep in the forests and figured every aspect of this story. It was a great boost, plus I'm refreshed after a short trip. Translation: expect more updates frequently.**

**Oh, yeah. Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans :) And happy Ramadan to any of you readers who is celebrating it.**

**On we go with the story. Millions of thanks for your great reviews.**

**Enjoy and tell me whatcha think.**

* * *

Maybe leaving the Pokemon shelter wasn't the brightest idea he had come up with.

He couldn't stop noticing how his teeth were hitting each other under the influence of the rain. His whole body shivered, even though he was half buried in the soil-now turning into mud and coating him in muck- to keep warm, and his every muscle was begging him to find something to heal himself. Half soaked, half dry, he was wondering how he even ended up there. The answer was quiet simple: He hadn't thought the plan through.

What now?

Days had past since he last left the shelter. No, maybe weeks. Maybe even months. Maybe merely a few days had passed. He didn't know, for he didn't have a sense of counting. He couldn't even approximately pinpoint when he had left. Numbers were nonsense to him as they were only human inventions, and he never had the need of becoming acquainted with them. They were only things written down in human speech, thus he didn't know how long it had been. Simply, he just couldn't care, because he couldn't understand human speech entirely.

All he knew was he was helplessly shivering under the wild rain.

He had no knowledge of his location, either. Obviously it was some sort of forest, but he didn't know where. He didn't even know what area or region or whatever he was in.

One other thing he never learned: living in the wild. And now that was his greatest weakness.

He had seldom lay his feet anywhere off the boundaries of the shelter. The yard was an exception, of course, but nevertheless he had only heard about the forests, the deserts and the oceans that apparently ruled the land from other shelter Pokemon.

Pikachu did not acknowledge how to do anything in the wild.

The collar around his neck was a real problem maker for him; it had chafed his skin sore. He tried to remove it immediately after the incident with the shelter girl trying to 'help' him, yet his efforts were proved futile as claw marks were left around the collar and the skin under it. It had only made the condition worse. But the electricity building up in him was more irritating. The collar prevented a discharge, and sometimes an unwanted discharge would hurt, despite being an electric type. He could feel the static electricity race through his every limb, urging him to offload the burden. It made him angry to see himself not completely free, after all.

This wasn't anything he wanted.

He shivered once more under the unstable structure of the dug hole. He was entirely caked in mud by then, and the water droplets descended from the sky and wet his eyes, forcing him to clear his vision with muddy paws. He buried himself a bit deeper in the hole for more dry soil to keep warm.

He hated the rain. He hated the shelter. He hated the collar. He hated every Pokemon who made it out by being chosen by someone. He hated the stupid forest in which food seemed like a delicacy to find. He hated everything, and that just made him growl of anger under the conflicting rain sound.

But most of all, he hated his owner who left him in the first place.

He couldn't remember his owner entirely, though. Only brief memories were left in his mind. He knew he had an owner, or maybe it was his trainer. He couldn't recall.

What he could recall was what was once his home. He was a little Pichu back then, and the first thing he had seen in the world was the happy face of his owner with eyes gleaming with excitement and joy when he hatched from an egg.

Not much time passed when he found himself running after his owner as a Pichu. He was confused at first, then scared, and afterwards he saw his owner's sad expression. Her eyes seemed all teared up, though he didn't understand why. Whatever reason she had, his owner left him. Fast forward some undefined time later, he was at the shelter.

* * *

It was time to hit the road again. Some fair share of time passed until the cruel rain stopped. Pikachu was amazed how quickly the forest Pokemon infiltrated the woods and went on with their lives once more.

It was sometime afternoon before he decided to finally rest under a bush with a nice shade underneath. So far, he didn't have any plans. He was heading out of the the forest. The trees and shrubs had started to thin out a while ago, and he was sticking to what seemed a route to see where it took him.

Of course, his curiosity stirred up when he heard something.

Pikachu timidly stuck his head out of the thick bushes and scanned his surrounding. His ears twitched once or twice to locate the source of the voice and he was not disappointed by what he found. He was far from it, actually. He went a little deeper into the forest and made distance with the road, but hid behind bushes and grass just in case. He was pleased with what he saw: a human Pokemon trainer had set a little camp just by the road.

Pikachu watched the human with care. From the looks of it, he wasn't that old. Merely ten or eleven, and his hair didn't seem like they had met a comb or a hairbrush before; his short raven hair was too messy. He had a red hat in his hand, and on his shoulder was resting... another Pikachu?

That wasn't the only Pokemon the boy had, apparently. Some sort of a red robin and a blue frog were accompanying him, and they were all enjoying themselves with supper and were talking about the rest of their 'team' and said something about a place called 'Shalour'.

Pikachu was quiet amused by their little group. Other than the Pikachu, had never seen the other two Pokemon, but they all seemed friendly enough. Maybe... maybe they had room for another Pikachu, if he were lucky. He hadn't eaten anything for some time.

Instead, Pikachu (or Pulse, as the shelter had named him) stayed under the bushes, carefully looking at the group; he was a bit timid when it came to making friends.

'Woah! That's a cool move...' Pikachu wondered as he witnessed the blue frog playfully shoot bubbles at his trainer. They all laughed and the boy replied in putting his dish aside and running after the frog. The red robin also pulled on his hair, sometimes pecking the blue vest he was wearing. Sometimes the boy's Pikachu would zap him with a weak electricity jolt. They were all messing around. They sure looked like one happy family.

Pikachu froze in his place after taking a step forward to introduce himself to the team. He just couldn't go there.

A simple look at the group revealed what they were with the boy: perfect. They were perfect for any Pokemon and any human. They way the three Pokemon played with moves revealed how trained they were. Pikachu was no expert in the Pokemon battling field, but the fact was easy to see.

They were too perfect, that is. Pikachu was not. And that was what humans wanted: perfect Pokemon.

He couldn't be a part of their team.

After all, such a great and powerful group had nothing to do with a freak.

Yet, the little Pikachu was too distracted to trace a purple reptile racing toward him from behind.

"Intruder!"

Startled, Pikachu turned around, but what he saw only doubled his fear and anxiety. A purple snake with an intimidating pattern on its hood was hissing at him not too far away. Pikachu recalled the Pokemon's species: an Arbok. There was once one of them in the shelter, but he was transferred to somewhere else for being too hostile against the other Pokemon.

He had forgotten how wary Arbok are about their territories. He also didn't know he was in one's territory at the moment.

A second later, a yelp echoed and soon the little Pikachu darted out of the shrubs. Little did he know what troubles an Arbok's bite would bring.

* * *

Did they care about him? Did they care about what happened to him?

Maybe yes, maybe not. He was only contemplating the possibilities. He wished they cared about him, although the chances of them finding him were slighter than encountering a shiny Pokemon in the wild. Maybe the boy saw him after he darted out of the bushes, but surely he had heard Pikachu's yelp. Maybe the boy would come to find him.

Oh, who was he kidding? He ran a good two miles after the Arbok's attack.

Maybe these were all side effects of being poisoned.

He couldn't make anything out of his environment anymore. First the lights were bright and vivid, but they faded away as soon as his fatigued body collapsed on the side of... the road? The route? Near some city? In the forest? He couldn't recall where he was.

All he knew was that he just wanted to rest...

Soon, he surrendered to the fatigue before even knowing what condition he was in and drowned in the chasm of sleep, or fainting, as he had heard trainers say. He couldn't point out the difference; they were quiet similar. He hadn't fainted before.

The pain tickled his side. Funny, he thought being poisoned would be far different than what it really was. He always thought it would finish him in an eye blink, thus he feared it. Yet it as completely the opposite; it was draining him slowly and inviting him to sleep. Seemed like he had a long path to cross and learn the truths of living in the wild.

His eyes slowly came to a close, soon his need for healing festered and he was left vulnerable without the slightest care.

He only wanted to sleep, and as soon as he closed his eyes the pain slowly slipped away.


End file.
